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June 23, 2006
The Immigration Gamble
Immigration has emerged in this midterm election year as a huge political issue, at the national, state and local levels.
Nationally, the House and Senate are at odds, with each passing very different legislation addressing the issue. The House bill is pretty harsh stuff, focusing on (badly needed) improved border security, but also criminalizing millions of undocumented workers and calling for their repatriation. The Senate favors a more moderate approach, with increased security, but allowing for some kind of status for most of the 11 to 12 million paperless immigrants. Wary of a bloody conference committee fight close to the election, the House has begged off appointing its conferees until after the November midterm.
Similarly, the GOP House leadership finds itself at odds with the party's standard bearer, President George W. Bush, who is much closer to the McCain-Kennedy Senate bill than the ideologues in the lower chamber.
The immigration issue has the potential to fire up the wavering hardcore conservative base, which has been unhappy with the president on a number of fronts of late (immigration included.) Increasingly, GOP Congressional candidates are running away from the president on this issue (and others) in an attempt to stave off a potential backlash election against the ruling party. Witness the recent special election in the San Diego area, where Republican Brian Bilbray won election to replace jailed Duke Cunningham, largely on his use of (and a big gaffe by his opponent)the immigration issue in a Caifornia border district. Early analysis suggests immigration does have some potential electoral pull for the GOP, at least in certain areas.
The larger question is what effect the immigration issue will or will not have on that long-sleeping (and growing) giant in American politics -- the Latino community. Latinos have now surpassed African Americans to become the largest minority group in the U.S. -- about 14% of the nation's population -- but have lagged behind in political power mostly because of low participation in the voting booth.
Much scholarship and political field work have been devoted to analyzing poor Latino participation and improving it. Up to now, despite a lot of research, the voting rates just haven't increased much. There are, of course myriad explanantions offered for the lack of change.
Will this issue this year finally move the needle and bring Latinos to the polls? We may have an interesting test case here in Houston. Word came earlier this week that an anti-immigration group will attempt to gather the necessary 20,000 signatures to place an anti-immigration referendum on the ballot for city voters this fall. No doubt they will get the signatures. But will Latinos in Houston, who constitute a plurality of the city's population but much less of the total vote, will respond to being singled out?
That may be the most important political question that is answered in Texas this fall, and will have profound implications for the state's electoral future.
Posted by houtopia at June 23, 2006 05:54 PM